OFFERS for work came in that Chess had to turn down. That was harsh. He made sure to pass each one to Remar; proof of income lost. It wasn’t the pills that precluded him from working—it was more the actual driving, turning his head this way and that, getting in and out of the car. Even holding up the camera or pumping gas exacerbated the pain.
Remar also wanted him to round up whatever tax returns he could get his hands on. Chess repeated how that might open a can of worms, but Remar was blasé.
“We’ll see. We’ll reconstruct. No harm, no foul.”
MAURIE came over, without warning.
“How you doin?”
“All right.”
“Listen, Chess. I know what happened was fucked up. But that wasn’t anyone’s plan. You know that, right?”
“I know that.”
“I mean if I had a clue it would have gone down like this there is no way I would have involved you. I thought it would be a goof. A way for us to pocket some bread.” He reached out and touched Chester’s arm. “I’m really sorry. OK?”
It felt like a ploy—Chess wondered if he’d been put up to this by FNF legal, or even a lawyer of his own. He was probably just being paranoid. He actually missed his “bud,” and wished things could go back to how they used to be. That’s how sick I am.
Maurie said he got a gig to shoot a commercial for an Indian casino in Morongo. Was Chess up for scouting? 3 days that’d pay around 4,000. It sounded too good to be true. Chess knew Remar would never give the go-ahead—it was short money and a bad move, the type of thing that might scotch his whole case. Maybe that was part of the Jew’s master plan. The Protocols of FNF.
When he said he couldn’t because his neck was torqued, Maurie turned on him with a fury.
“You’re really being a fucking ham! Get back in the saddle, man! Where’s your sense of humor?”
“I don’t have a sense of humor about possible nerve damage to my spine. Should I be laughing, Maurie? Does that sound, like, Comedy Central?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? Is that what the doctor said?”
“They don’t know yet.”
“I can’t believe this! Who’ve you been seeing? Mengele? These people are friends of mine.”
“These ‘people’? At Friday Night Frights?”
“They’ll give you work, man—I already spoke to them. You could work full-time, get your union hours. You could buy a new car. Total medical coverage. Why are you being such a dick?”
“You know what, Maurie? Maybe you should split. I got a headache.”
“Yeah. I’ll split. I don’t like to be around old women.”
“Right! I’m an old woman. Now go buy flowers for all your close personal friends at FNF. Flowers and K-Y.”
“You gonna sue these people, Chess? Cause that is about the most fucked-up thing you can do. Karmically.”
“Oh, are we Hindu now, Maurie? Did you convert?”
“I’ve been there, that’s all. I’ve sued and been sued and it’s a motherfucker. Turns you upside down and sucks your life force. But hey: what do I know? Go for it. Get Tom Mesereau on the phone. I’m the guy who sued Home Depot after I tripped over a rubber hose in the gardening department. Took 3 years and you know what I got? 22K—60% of which went to lawyers and taxes. By the time it was over, I was popping benzos like Altoids and my self-esteem was in the shitter. But go for it.” He scuttled toward the door then turned, theatrically. “Know what I think, Chess?”
“Tell me, Maurice.”
“I think you should do some yoga and call it a day.” He paused. “I can seriously get you on staff at Frights. I told you, I talked to them. It’s done.”
“They throwing me a bone, Maurie? Are you the bag man? What is this, a pity fuck? Or are they running scared?”
“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes.
“I think they’re running scared.”
“Man, this thing has really twisted you! I don’t know who’s whispering in your ear, my friend, but this is not going to end with you sipping daiquiris on your own tropical island. I’ll tell you how this is going to end: with your body healing way before your head does. Cause it’s a self-perpetuating thing—the more paranoid you get, the more ‘pain’ you’re gonna be in. It’s all about pride, Chester. Ego. Is your ego so fucking fragile that you couldn’t take a little practical joke? Couldn’t laugh at yourself and have a good time? Be on television, with a steady fucking job and a new car? Healthcare? And maybe a girlfriend?”
“A girlfriend? What does that mean?”
“I think you need to get laid.”
“Get the fuck out, Maurie.”
“You need a little kundalini, bud. Channel your energy elsewhere. You need a chick to fuck, not a lawyer. News Flash: the lawyers are gonna be fucking you. Or didn’t you know that.”
“Sayonara,” said Chess, now standing.
“If you think you’re gonna win the lawsuit lottery and hump Kellie Pickler, cool. Knock yourself out. Be the Payback Poster Boy. But remember: chicks dig guys with jobs. Chicks dig guys with jobs and new cars who don’t sit around their apartment smoking weed and popping pills like Lenny Bruce, building their case against the world.”
“Fuck you!”
“I get it,” said Maurie, backing down. He was halfway out the door now. “That’s cool. Namaste, Chester,” he said snidely. “Namaste. Gassho. Call me when the swelling goes down—of your ego. In the meantime, try not to leave any severed fingers in the chili at Wendy’s. Though there’s big money in that too, if you don’t get caught.”
THAT night, Chess watched a tsunami doc on MTV. Surfers and real MDs went over to help. Their T-shirts said MALARIA SUCKS. Rock songs played during amputations, to hold the attention of the demographic.
He switched the channel: another Big Wave Anni show, with the same recycled shots of killer tides engulfing the infamous hotel pool. (Some guy really must have got rich off that footage.) There was a segment on these nerdy bureaucrats in Hawaii who kept saying they wanted to warn people but didn’t know how. One of them said they probably could have if they’d been able to find phone numbers of the embassies. Chess thought that was sort of funny and disarming. The pinhead suddenly gets a “miraculous” call in the middle of the night, “a real lifesaver,” from the State Department—and then he thinks to ask, Can you give me the numbers of the embassies? By the time he starts his round of wake-ups, it’s too late. Not that it wouldn’t have been anyway. The documentary was pretty engaging but they eventually ran out of stuff to say and it got crazy. People began theorizing about 50-story waves being generated by simple landslides or how a volcano blowing its top in the Canary Islands could basically wipe out Manhattan. The nerdwatchers said the chances were “slim” but such events were “imminent.” Basically, the whole Pacific coast, from Vancouver to San Diego, could be wiped out as well. Each time, the size of potential waves grew: from 100 to 200 to even 300 feet. Why didn’t they just say the waves would be a mile fucking high? You’d have to be in a goddam 747 to be safe. They kept cutting back to this butched-up pseudoseismoscientist dyke saying, “It could happen anytime. It could happen…today.”
Right. About the same odds as you going down on Anne Hathaway. You fucking whitehaired diesel. Weasel diesel crock.
Chess swigged down Percocet and Soma with a diet Dr Pepper. He flipped to a series on AMC called Film Fakers. The premise was a bunch of unknown actors cast in lead roles in genre films (there’d been a similar thing a few seasons back starring people who got famous on reality shows), the reveal being that everything was bogus, from script to director to crew. An extended, low-rent version of Punk’d, except with unfamous people. Kinda funny.
He lit a joint. Maurie’s words stung and Chess wondered if he was being a poor sport. Maybe the pain was in his head. But how could that be? In grade school, he was “a whiner.” Even his kid sister called him that. No, this was different. It wasn’t an ego thing—he’d been injured for real. Take these Film Fakers kids: they were all young, desperate, aspiring actors, and however pathetic it turned out, happy to have the exposure. Whereas Chess was a grown man, just like Remar said, fighting the good fight against getting older, struggling to pay bills and join the union. No, fuck that—fuck Maurie Levin and his manipulative bullshit. Fuck your bosom buddy madres at Friday Night Frights. I’ll sue the shit out of em and slap a suit on your kinky-haired ass if I have to, Superjew! Fraud and misrepresentation. Emotional fuckin distress. You blew it sky-high today, Rabbi! Comin over here runnin your namaste mouth. Try to buy me off with your chicks-like-
guys-with-jobs-and-new-car-smell fucking horseshit. Chicks like chicks with dicks! he thought, laughing out loud. I’ll fuck your pimped-out hippie girlfriend too.
SHE dropped by again, and gave him a New Age bookstore pamphlet about Ganesh, her father’s patron.
Laxmi said that years ago her dad broke his back and finally had something called spinal fusion, where they screw a metal rod in your spine. The surgery was done in New Delhi. Chess thought she was sharing the anecdote to make him feel better—as if whatever was wrong with him would never be that bad. Her heart was in the right place. Her pussy too. But I wouldn’t know.
After she left, he went online. He was stoned and curious. Fusion stuff was all over the place. The technology had recently been in the news because the doctor who invented it won a patent suit against some manufacturing company for infringement. He was going to get a settlement of one-point-
3,000,000,000. In a peace-and-love prescripted press release, he said there were no hard feelings—he really liked the company that tried to steal from him, and even announced he’d be doing business with them in the future. Well who the fuck wouldn’t. A lot of experts said that half the 250,000 spinal fusions done in the States each year were totally unnecessary; statistics said that instead of fusion, you could have the far less invasive laminectomy or even no surgery at all and do just fine. A little Pilates or even a walk around the block went a long way. But Medicare had bought into the game big-time and everyone was brainwashed into thinking that the more money a procedure cost, the more effective it was. The American way: $$$ = Best. Docs got kickbacks, free trips to Hawaii, and 6-figure consulting fees from whoever made the hardware, and hospitals quadrupled their fees, leaving the crippled, infected, and dead in their wake. Money kept talking even if it didn’t end up walking.
Chess went into some of the blogs and chat rooms. People were beginning to wake up and smell the litigation. But you had be careful: a lot of class action suits had fraudulent underpinnings: big drug companies were being extorted, and they were starting to fight back. Reading about this shit was like staring at one of those Bosch paintings. Gave him the willies. He would never let someone cut into him, that’s for damn sure. He’d be on a beach somewhere counting his money before that would happen.
Slurping daiquiris.
Watch me, Maurie. Watch it happen. Fuckin Jew.